


Exploring Changes

by dragonwriter24cmf



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male-Female Friendship, Psychological Trauma, Spoilers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29991138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwriter24cmf/pseuds/dragonwriter24cmf
Summary: May's thoughts and feelings, that day in Phil's office when he told her 'I feel different'. Because there were differences, and even if she couldn't tell him everything...she knew she had to tell him something.
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Exploring Changes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of SHIELD.

**Exploring Changes**

“This piece of paper is telling me that everything is fine. But...I don’t feel fine. I feel...different.”

He’s looking at her, open and vulnerable. The mask is gone. She can see his fear. His eyes reveal wounds that are different from the one he’s talking about, and have yet to heal.

There are many responses she could give. Reassuring, empty platitudes.  ‘You’re all right.’ ‘It will pass.’ ‘I’m sure you’re fine, just give it time.’

But he’s heard all of them, and empty words cannot reassure him. He has spoken them too often. And even with the papers in front of him saying that he is well, that nothing is wrong, he cannot shake his fears. Platitudes can do nothing against such pain.

She could give him brutal truths. ‘You died.’ ‘We gave you an alien serum and we aren’t sure of the effects.’ ‘We altered your memories, but we aren’t sure what it did to your mind.’ ‘Everyone else who was revived like you went mad, and I’m really here to watch you in case you do the same.’

Brutal truths will shatter his world. And resilient as he is, he’s also still healing, still rediscovering himself and his balance, his place. Still settling back into his life. It’s not an easy thing, and there is every likelihood that brutal truths will break him completely.

A balance then, must be found, between truth and reassurance. A balance, and a way to present it that will soothe his pain and his fear, truly soothe it, and allow healing, rather than just a quick bandage over a bleeding psyche.

She considers her options, looking him over, tapping a finger on the door to ensure it is locked. Whatever else is true, this moment is intensely private and personal. For both of them. Then she steps closer, a single step. “Take off your shirt.”

He jolts, eyes wide and wary, frame tensing. “Excuse me?”

She can guess what he’s thinking. And she did consider offering physical intimacy to soothe his pain and reassure him. Ultimately, she discarded it. Yes, it would pull him from his fears, but it wouldn’t address them. Not the way they need to be addressed. They might ease his fears of physical change or deficiency, but the mental uncertainties would remain.

Phil Coulson is a complex man. He needs more than words, but at the same time, the wordless communication of pure touch and sensation is not enough either.

She moves closer, a slow, easy movement, nothing of temptation or anything save neutrality in it. She approaches him the way she would a frightened rescue objective, or a frightened animal. In truth, the wariness in his eyes reminds her of a cat, chased away and abandoned one too many times and untrusting of the welcome it’s receiving. 

She’s still more than an arm’s length away when she responds. “Your shirt. Unbutton it.” Perhaps asking him to strip away the suit that serves as his armor was too much. He’s so very vulnerable right now, mentally and emotionally.

He stares at her a moment longer, then raises his hands and undoes the button of his jacket, without ever looking away from her. He doesn’t shed the jacket, or the tie, the way he would if he were comfortable. It tells her she’s right in her assessment. He’s vulnerable and frightened. He couldn’t tolerate physical intimacy if she offered it to him, too raw internally to respond. Too uncertain to accept or embrace the vulnerability of such things.

Just as well that’s not what she has in mind.

He nudges the tie to one side, revealing the buttons of his shirt. Reaches up to undo the one just beneath his collar. Then a second and third button, to the one just above his navel. He doesn’t untuck the shirt or remove any of his clothing. He only does the minimum to comply with her command.

But it’s enough. It’s a crack in the armor, and all she needs. She steps closer until she’s only inches away. Close enough to hear the hiss of his breath. To see the frozen stillness of him, a tension that doesn’t quite suppress the fine tremor running over him. Close enough to feel the heat of his body, and the coiled wariness of him.

She reaches out, every movement slow and gentle, giving him time to break away if he needs to. If he wants to. But she knows Phil, knows him well, and despite his fear and his raw vulnerability, his shame at being so exposed, even to her, he does not shy away or step back.

He’s always been so brave. Even in the face of his own weakness and turmoil.

She touches the edges of the shirt, eases the fabric apart to bare his chest.

She knew there was a scar, from where he was stabbed. It’s huge, thick and red, and several inches long, with a small fork at the top. The staff had a prong on it, she recalls. It stands out, violent and dark, far more jagged than any open heart surgery scar she’s ever seen. It looks agonizing, even now, and she cannot imagine what the inflicting of it, or the healing of it, must have been like.

She looks up into his eyes, and his mask is still gone, his whole face open with his anguish as he waits for her response. For her judgment. Pleading with her, for something neither of them can really define, but might be described as a complex mixture of hope, comfort, validation, acceptance, and kindness. Perhaps honesty as well, though he knows that truth could cut as deeply as the blade which pierced him.

She swallows against that open gaze, the raw emotion of it, and allows some of her own walls to drop. Vulnerability for vulnerability. A gift of trust and honesty to match what he is giving her as he stands without flinching under her touch.

She brushes the scar, then looks into his eyes, wanting him to see the truth of her words in her own gaze. “Whether it was 8 seconds or 40 seconds...you died.”

He’s seemed to make light of that since he came back. Treated it as a matter-of-fact sort of thing. Like being shot. But they both know it was more, and it’s past time it was addressed. “There is no way you can go through a trauma like that, and come through unchanged.”

Honesty. Words he’s probably heard before, but not like this, not raw and open and with the proof of his wounds and his ordeal so starkly on display.

She swallows again. “You know how long it’s taken me to...”

“I know.” Even in the midst of his anguish, he is kind. Taking the painful wounds she would willingly reveal and perhaps reopen for him and shielding them with gentle words and understanding eyes. Some of the tension bleeds from his shoulders, a silent recognition, and acceptance of what she would offer, did he need it.

She sighs against that kindness and continues her thoughts. “The point of these things...” She strokes gentle fingers over his scar, feels him tremble in response. “The point of these things is to remind us that there is no going back. Only forward.” She meets his eyes, calm and supportive and strong. The rock he needs, even if her own footing feels slightly unsteady at this moment. “You feel different, because you are different.”

Something lights in his eyes. Relief, she thinks. He needed someone to recognize his feelings. To tell him that he wasn’t wrong, wasn’t imagining things, and that it is all right. Accepted and expected and unjudged. Respected.

He is different. He has been through fire, more even than he knows, and come through to the other side. He has died and returned, and that is not an easy thing, even if it’s only seconds. Even if his mind does not remember all the details, his subconscious will feel it. And Phil is far too wise and experienced to ignore his subconscious, even if he does not understand everything it tells him.

There’s a tenderness in his eyes, that she suspects matches her own feelings. There is a moment when things might turn intimate, and she lets it pass them by. So does he. They both know that this is not a time for that.

The tenderness he accepts and returns with gratitude, as it smooths over the raw edges of pain and washes away his fears. Acceptance he takes gratefully, because he needed it. But he needs time to sort himself out, and they both know it.

She gives him a smile, and gently buttons his shirt, covering the scar. His smile says ‘thank you’ without words. Even better, there’s a kind of peace in his eyes that wasn’t there. A steadiness that was missing.

She knows this isn’t the end. There will be hell to pay if, or when, he discovers the truth. And it’s too much to hope for that he won’t. He ordered tests because he could feel a difference, and even if he attributes it to trauma, he can still feel it, and he will try to sort everything in his mind. It’s not unlikely that he’ll notice the gaps. Or perhaps the memories will resurface naturally, in spite of all they tried to do. Equally likely, he’ll notice, perhaps already has noticed, the odd scripted tone to his responses about his recovery. Tahiti might be a magical place, but the repetitiveness of that phrase is unusual for him.

They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. Every day that he has time to heal, to find himself and get his bearings, recover his purpose and his strength...every such day is a victory. And it means a greater likelihood that when he does discover the truth, however it happens, he will be strong enough, ready enough, to meet it.

It’s all she can hope for. And until then, the steady bulwark of her support, whatever may come, is all she can give.

In these changing times, that will have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This scene just...spoke to me. It's a very emotional scene, especially in light of what you discover later. And May just wanted to make her thoughts and feelings known.


End file.
